Heroes of the Storm II: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision

[turbo164]

Yaaay Necro! One of my favorite characters from any game ever.

*reads kit*

Hmm, the reverse skillshot is a cool idea, little odd that they chose to add it to this guy when they had 30 d2 spells to choose from. Looks fun either way :)

And regarding the Gargantuan AI discussion earlier, this was on Reddit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIv_...ature=youtu.be

Edit: Also from Reddit:

[–]Blizz_KinaBREW 296 points 23 hours ago
Hmm, I wonder what Bone spear and corpse explosion would look like. You know... if there were talents for them. ;)

[CarpeGuitarrem]

They kinda have something like that already, in the form of Falstad's hammerang. It's probably closest to Sivir from LoL, except that it doesn't seem to damage on the way out.

[ChaosOS]

Hammerang == Sivir Boomerang. I don't remember all the LoL heroes but it's actually kinda like Kerrigan E which spawns away then pulls inwards.

[Driderman]

I've gotten into playing a fair bit of Heroes of the Storm recently (again) on the Europe servers, and having some somewhat competent people to play with rather than randoms (how can a 3-man level 40 premade not understand objectives!? ) certainly would be interesting. I feel like I'm pretty competent although I have only played quick matches so far so that illusion may be shattered I guess

Anyway, if anybody on Europe wants to add me and play some games, maybe do some voice-communication I'd be up for it. I'm Khorvale#2527. I mostly like to play the more oddball characters and supports like Abathur and Brightwing, and I think I play a pretty mean Zagara but I think I generally have a handle on most roles although support and specialist is usually where I do best.

(Added the Europe accounts)

[ChaosOS]

PTR Patch notes!: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/19998381

Highlights:

Li-Ming!

CHEN FLYING KICK BUG FIXED

"Non Hero Units" cleaned up massively, anything that had restricted bonus got a tooltip update to reflect accurate terminology. Now there's 5 categories: Heroes, Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters (IE Neutral Garden of Terror units), and Summons.

Shan'Do Illidan and Spectre Illidan now have (more) unique VFX, including their own metamorphasis! Also, Illidan Damage went up 5%

Cho'Gall talent shake up!

Nova Talent Rework!

Rehgar Talent Rework!

Lots of other random changes, but Sonya nerfs

[Draken]

PTR Patch notes!: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/19998381

Highlights:

Li-Ming!

CHEN FLYING KICK BUG FIXED

"Non Hero Units" cleaned up massively, anything that had restricted bonus got a tooltip update to reflect accurate terminology. Now there's 5 categories: Heroes, Minions, Mercenaries, Monsters (IE Neutral Garden of Terror units), and Summons.

Shan'Do Illidan and Spectre Illidan now have (more) unique VFX, including their own metamorphasis! Also, Illidan Damage went up 5%

Cho'Gall talent shake up!

Nova Talent Rework!

Rehgar Talent Rework!

Lots of other random changes, but Sonya nerfs

I'm not sure how to feel about the changes to Nova.

From one angle, I hate going against Novas and welcome the change.

From another angle, I hate having Novas on my team and the change does nothing to help it.

[Gandariel]

Huh, I wasn't expecting a patch this soon, after the time it took last time.

So, randomly...

Good to see Cho'gall and rhegar rework.
Good to see Lunara's responsiveness autoattack thing, we'll need to see if it works

Couple random OK-looking small changes. Very tiny Illidan buff, but they know they have to be careful with him.

And then Nova.

Overall it feels like a nerf, which is fine. She's not supposed to be very popular, and it's tiring to see her every game.

The biggest changes I see are the removal of double fake (bummer) and the rework of Gathering Power into Gathering Skillshots, which... gives a pretty high skill cap to our blondie.

Kinda scary buff to Zeratul. Did he really need it?

Still nothing on Kael thas. I mean I'm happy, he's my best hero, but I'm pretty sure he'll be nerfed at some point, just a little bit.

[Gandariel]

News: saw Li Ming talents.

1
Cool!
2
So friggin cool!
3
Interesting, the "pro" build is clearly visible but not the "only"
4
Woo hoo so cool!!

[Malistrae]

I honestly don't miss Nova's decoy combo. While it was certainly her only semi-playable build, but it was just extremely annoying and stressful to play against. Her changes are a step in the right direction. However, I would like to see some improvements to her in other areas (mainly Siege Damage), since most Novas are forced to ignore that rather vital aspect of the game. No, she shouldn't become a full-blown pusher, but she should be at least able to defend a fort against minions when reinforced by her own minions.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

And then Nova.

Overall it feels like a nerf, which is fine. She's not supposed to be very popular, and it's tiring to see her every game.

The biggest changes I see are the removal of double fake (bummer) and the rework of Gathering Power into Gathering Skillshots, which... gives a pretty high skill cap to our blondie.

What I really like is the recharacterization of her talents. Now, not only do they feel more intuitive to choose from, but there's also many more interesting decisions along the talent path. Now, overall, she suffers in power, and I'm sure there's Nova mains who are freaking out about the nerfs, but I think they'll get over it and Nova's power level will come back up when they tweak the numbers again.

What I like the most is that there's no longer one main build (Ambush Snipe -> GP -> AA Shells -> Lethal Decoy -> Double Fake -> Rewind). There's gonna be a lot more variety among Novas, and a bit of growing pains as people learn to play the new Nova.

Kinda scary buff to Zeratul. Did he really need it?

I'm pretty okay with this, honestly. He hasn't been in a great spot, and Shadow Assault was never a viable ult next to Void Prison. We'll see if the buffs are enough to make it a competitive pick now. The reduced CD and the huge range are gonna help a lot.

I also like a lot of the quality-of-life improvements, including the new icons and the new indicators (like range indicators and keep invulnerability indicators, considering I never knew about keep invulnerability until about a month ago).

[ChaosOS]

And a real patch today: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20021838

Muradin Avatar +HP and -CD, but loses ministun on hit

Greymane buffed

Series of Ult Changes, generally small buffs to underused ults, with the main exception of Falstad's hinterland blast getting a mild damage buff in exchange for the CD going from 90s to 120s

Spoiler: PTR Playtest Thoughts

Show

Nova is a poke-based hero now. 4s snipes that do pretty high damage if you keep hitting them are good. Cloaked MS at 1 combined with Ghost Protocol at 20 is a real escape, I didn't die once after I hit 20

Rehgar buffs are very significant and opened up talent choices, unfortunately not gotten a good chance to try out the Lightning Shield build because I keep ending up being the only real melee on my team (Greymanes and Zeratuls hardly count)

Li-Ming is pretty scary but very high skill cap, her skillshots are finicky and rely on hitting all of her missiles to do significant damage

[CarpeGuitarrem]

So I picked up Chen after seeing some of the vids with him, and wow, he's actually really fun! You gotta hand it to someone who can easily start a Bruiser camp at low health and come out of it with 2/3rds health. I'm gonna want to play around with him a bit, but that super-tankiness is really neat.

[Draken]

Managed the impossible yesterday.

Zagara, Jaina, Murky, Falstad, Graymane VS Azmodan, Abathur, Valla, Illidan, Graymane.

Cursed Hollow.

48 MINUTES GAME.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

managed the impossible yesterday.

Zagara, jaina, murky, falstad, graymane vs azmodan, abathur, valla, illidan, graymane.

Cursed hollow.

48 minutes game.

Why. Would. You. Ever.

[Draken]

Why. Would. You. Ever.

Teams were very wary of engaging (no tanks, no supports), both sides were very good at clearing waves during curses and fights left both teams too bruised to push in during said curses soooo...

[Grytorm]

Well I got the updates complete again. And it is running slightly better. Still very slow. I reduced the resolution and all the graphic options are at the minimum, any other ways to get this bloody game to work better? I will try it at my school sometime to see if the problem is with the connection.

[Eru_07]

I didn't see a consensus, anyone want to take a quick poll today? I'll change the thread title in 12 hours or so

Option 1: Who Shall curry my flavor?

Option 2: NO! I AM NOT FINISHED!

Option 3: Thread. Augmented. Logical Decision

Option 4: You are very good at murder

Option 5: "I'm Ready!" "I'm not ready!"

Option 6: "What's the point of this?" "...you're thinking WAY too hard about it."

And regarding the battlegrounds sacrificing themselves, lands that are spells are generally pretty good, it's rare for a land to generate something as large as a 5/5

More of this in many places please and thank you.

[Grytorm]

I have discovered that I can decrease sound quality and reverb as well.

[ChaosOS]

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/19995509

Patch notes up, no noticeable differences from PTR notes if you read those (Aside from dev comments)

THE LUNAR FESTIVAL IS UPON US! Similar to the Infernal Shrines event, at the start of your game you may encounter the Monkey Elder. Right click on him and follow him around before the gates are open and once per day you'll get 100 gold

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Most importantly, like I thought, they mentioned that they will be very quick to tweak Nova's numbers in response to what happens.

[ChaosOS]

So, after quite a few Nova games, I've come to the conclusion that Snipe Master, through and through, is a trap. However, the W build is pretty solid and is actually viable.

Spoiler: The Build

Show

1: Longshot
4: Rapid Projection
7: One in the Chamber
10: Precision Strike
13: Double Tap
16: Crippling Shot
20: Rewind

[Grytorm]

I have an idea for how they could change Illidan, maybe. Roll the steroid part of his Metamorphosis ult into his passive and have it trigger when he ultimates. Then balance off of that. I think it would be a good idea because it allows them to work from one set of combat numbers while and to balance the ultimates against eachother primarily off of utility and engage potential. Probably add a slow to Metamorphosis and increase the area a little?

[Gandariel]

Played Nova once in HL because the enemy team was basically begging for it (malf, Li Ming, Jaina, Valla and... an unimportant tank)

Did the same build as you, actually took the upgrade to the ultimate at level 20.
Worked well and we won, although playstyle is different and she feels weaker overall (especially before 16). Also, even with the vulnerability, she kinda always needs some help to actually kill fools.


As to Illidan, he's clearly hard to balance,because even a small shift might make him OP again.
Right now he's slightly under powered, and has absolutely zero talent diversity.

What I feel they should do is put some of his "must pick " talents in the same talent tier, to create some diversity.

Moving (say) just the level 1 Evasion talent to level 4 would give him two talent tiers with some diversity.

This (while it solves the diversity problem) is of course a nerf, and they could supplement that with some flat HP/damage bonus or something.

[ChaosOS]

Illidan and Arthas both desperately need talent reworks, they heavily rely on First Aid/Stoneskin for tankiness. I think both are getting looked at, but when we get the talent reworks is anyone's guess.

As to Ilidan's viability, he's really not nearly as bad this patch as the Rehgar buffs make his best bud a lot more common and viable as a pick.

[Malistrae]

Illidan is also pretty good against Li-Ming. The Hunt is a hard counter, and Illidan is well-equipped to dodge her skillshots. You need some fast reflexes, though.

However, what I am most concerned about right now is the trifecta of Nova, Rehgar and Li-Ming. While good Nova players found ways to make her viable, she still needs some tuning, imo, to be more useful. Rehgar also needs a bit of tuning, because much like Tyrande before him, he is simply too good at damage, healing and tanking. A competent Rehgar player with a good build can deal a lot of damage, while still heal a lot. Li-ming is a different case. While I do not think she is OP, her siege damage needs serious changes, since she totally makes pusher Specialists like Azmo or Hammer obsolete. She can simply deal too much damage to buildings too fast. At level 1, she can easily and safely take away at least 30%-40% of a turret's health before the minion waves even arrive. That is slightly overtuned. I think changing buildings to be more resistant to non-specialist ability damage (maybe a 25-35% reduction would be enough) might be the way to balance this and restore siege specialists to prominence. Especially, if these specialists also get a slight damage buff against buildings.

[Gandariel]

Well, reddit confirms:

Level 19 Rehgar solo killing level 20 Illidan + Zeratul, both ulting him

Li Ming's WQ kills people, with no real trouble

Rhegar just needs some down tuning

Li Ming has no mana problems (her supposed limiting factor) and Ess of Johan makes aiming Q too easy.
And also she apparently takes 21 seconds to take down a turret without ever being in danger

[Malistrae]

Well, reddit confirms:

Level 19 Rehgar solo killing level 20 Illidan + Zeratul, both ulting him

Li Ming's WQ kills people, with no real trouble

Rhegar just needs some down tuning

Li Ming has no mana problems (her supposed limiting factor) and Ess of Johan makes aiming Q too easy.
And also she apparently takes 21 seconds to take down a turret without ever being in danger

I think Li-Ming's lack of mana problems stem from her Arcane Presence. Maybe removing or redesigning that talent is necessary. Either that or increase the mana cost of her abilities. But yeah, her siege damage is simply unbelievable. We certainly need some sort of durability buff to buildings, while increasing the importance of siege specialists.

[ChaosOS]

Making Magic Missiles do half damage to buildings would solve the siege damage issue.

Also, that WQ gib video was a Li-Ming that has 0 defensive and took glass cannon. Yes, she does a lot of damage, but if Reghar had moved to dodge and wasn't completely alone away from his team she'd be a very dead wizard

[Frog Dragon]

Rehgar is severely overpowered right now. I kind of saw this coming, since he was already playable before the buffs, just totally locked into one talent build. A sweeping buff to everything that he does... well, this was going to happen.

Li Ming is also overpowered, but less so than Rehgar.

KT still needs a little bit of a nerf.

Dibbles too probably. It seems like he just has too much threat while being quite difficult to take down.

Also, TLV free week. Quick Match is not prepared.

[Grytorm]

As a horrible low level player with a grand sense of entitlement I think I have some cool ideas of how to change Artanis for no reason. Probably would end up being buffs while making him a bit worse at pushing.

First his passive activates whenever he takes damage, not only when below half health. Also the reduction is based at 1.5 seconds per attack, doubling when below half health. So this I think would boost his tankyness some, maybe, and help him survive in the early parts of the fight.

Second major change is to his Q. Boost the damage when going out somewhat. Nerf the base damage going in to the same as the damage going out. And whenever he hits a something significant* on the return pass he attacks them. This would give the Q a clearer role in his kit. Encouraging him to use it when his W is on cooldown and adding a bit more survivability.

* I am defining significant as kind of larger things. It wouldn't hit minions, skeletons, small plants, or weird soldier things for objectives, and smaller summoned minions like Zags kit and Locusts. But he would attack mercenaries, Heroes, Misha and larger objectives. I don't know about buildings.